


Death at Dawn

by the_random_writer



Category: Bourne (Movies), Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux, The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Genre: Bookstores, Cats, Central Intelligence Agency, Coffee, Gen, Squirrels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6866596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ty and Zane deal with an unwelcome delivery, and an unwelcome early morning guest.</p><p>A crossover fic that combines Cut & Run with my <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/324236">Separated Twins</a> series, featuring William Cooper from 'RED' and Kirill from 'The Bourne Supremacy'.  Related to my <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/406024">Triples</a> series, but not part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death at Dawn

"How many times do I have to tell you that you can't just flounce in here like you _own_ the place and leave a dead body on our floor?"

These were the words that greeted Zane at seven o'clock on a Sunday morning as he padded into the store. On hearing the anger in his husband's voice, he almost decided to turn around and secretly return to the house. He was too damn cold, too damn tired and too damn decaffeinated to deal with a furious Ty at such an outrageous hour.

Mother of God. What the hell were the two of them even doing, coming into the store on what was supposed to be their day off, at a time of day when it was technically still night? Oh, yeah. Following CIA orders, _that's_ what.

Zane let out a weary sigh, carefully closed and locked the door behind him, then all but tiptoed across to the till, not quite ready to give his presence in the building away. Coffee. He needed coffee. Lots of it. At least one cup, preferably two. And not the shitty flavoured muck they sometimes handed out to guests during author signing and reading sessions. The good stuff in the airtight tin that all of their employees knew not to touch on pain of an early death. Once he had some decent java in his system, he would be ready, willing and more or less able to face whatever challenges the day contained.

As he collected his pint-sized mug from where he'd abandoned it the day before, his sleep-fogged brain reminded him that the coffee maker was in the kitchen. Unfortunately, so was Ty, and according to Ty's verbal expulsions, so was a dead body. Zane wasn't squeamish by any means, but as a general rule, he refused to deal with the dearly departed while he himself wasn't completely in the land of the living. So he didn't want to confront the corpse until he'd had his morning joe, but he couldn't have his morning joe until he confronted the corpse.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity, shit, fuck.

It was days like these (thankfully few and far between) that _almost_ made him regret their decision to sign on with the CIA. He didn't care how good the dental benefits were, where they held their Christmas dinner, or how many bullets and guns the two of them could now claim on expenses. Nothing short of mind-blowingly libidinous sex was worth this level of aggravation at stupid o'clock in the morning, especially in the middle of winter.

It was so damn cold in Baltimore right now, the hookers were charging people twenty-five bucks just to blow warm air on their hands. Nobody in their right mind willingly left the warmth of a house before the sun was fully up, unless their life or limbs depended on it.

And if the weather wasn't bad enough, there was also the lack of decent notice. Someone from Langley had called them late the night before, just as they were going to bed, to warn them about an impending visit. An agent would be stopping by in the early hours of the following morning, and might or might not need to use their underground accommodation, depending on how well his Saturday evening went.

Had the agent in question already arrived, even though it was barely dawn? Was his or her unseemly behaviour now the cause of the shouting match going on at the back of the store? Based on Ty's most recent contribution to the conversation, it was obviously someone they both knew, and had worked with at least once before. Zane drew his brows together, thinking hard, trying to figure out who the hell it could possibly be. They'd now encountered a dozen or so CIA assets and agents, but only a few of them had ever returned for a second visit.

Maybe it was that asshole Orlov again, bringing them another one of his special 'gifts'. Two months ago, he'd turned up at their back door in the middle of a terrible storm, completely drenched from head to toe, dragging a very bruised and battered Russian illegal behind him. Unfortunately, the bruising and battering had obviously taken a heavy toll, and the illegal had expired on them just as they were manhandling his body into the fridge.

Langley had not been very pleased with that particular turn of events, and neither had Ty. Although, Ty's displeasure had been less to do with the man's death, and more to do with the fact that he'd bled all over the recently cleaned hardwood floor. Ty had bitched about the mess for days, then left Orlov an expletive-ridden voicemail message, threatening to gut him with a rusty spoon if he ever darkened their doorstep or their bookstore again.

"Don't you flash those Bambi eyes at me, asshole. You know damn well what I'm talking about," he heard Ty shout.

Hmm. So it probably wasn't Orlov. The Russian had many interesting and useful skills, but he could no more pull a decent Bambi impersonation than he could sprout wings and fly to the moon.

It occurred to Zane then that whoever their mystery visitor was, he or she was obviously a quiet speaker, because no matter how hard or how closely he listened, he couldn't hear a second voice. Then again, ever since the explosion which had demolished the original bookstore building, he'd had gaps in his hearing that no amount of straining could fill. He could hear his husband, loud and clear, but Ty _was_ shouting. Not _quite_ at the top of his lungs, but he was getting close.

"God damn it!" was Ty's next eruption. "Will you leave the poor bastard alone? You already killed him once. You can't kill him all over again!"

Zane decided he'd heard enough, and that the time had now come for him to bless the proceedings with his presence. He needed his goddamn cup of coffee, and more to the point, he needed to see what the hell their CIA guest was doing to that dead body.

He shucked out of his heavy coat, threw it onto a nearby rack, then grabbed his mug and strolled down the hall that took him to the back of the store, purposely making a lot of noise so Ty would notice his approach. The last thing he needed today was to be roughly tackled to the ground by a surprised and angry former marine. He'd been there, done that and didn't want another round of painful bruises to prove it.

"Hey, doll," he called out ahead of him. "Sorry I took so long to get my lazy ass out of bed. Thought I heard you shout something. Everything going okay back here?"

Ty stepped out from behind the closed half of the French doors, his fists jammed hard on his hips, scowling furiously, looking like a human volcano about to blow. "It's a good thing you're here now, Lone Star," he said. "Because as much as I love him, I'm ready to kick this jerk in the ass."

So it _definitely_ wasn't Orlov. The guy was absolutely a jerk, but nothing about Ty's relationship with the Russian could ever be described as 'love'. Or, for that matter, Ty's relationship with the vast majority of the people he knew. So what in the seven hells was going on?

"What jerk?" Zane asked, verbalizing his confusion, making a very conscious effort to sound more patient than he felt.

" _That_ jerk," Ty replied, stabbing an accusatory finger into the room behind him.

Zane took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for the worst, then peeked around the edge of the closed door. The kitchen was completely empty; there wasn't a soul to be seen.

Zane turned back to his angry spouse, eyebrows raised, silently demanding an explanation. Ty leaned back against the open door, folded his arms tightly across his chest, and nodded his head towards the floor. Zane moved slightly further in, earning a better view of the room, and sighed in weary disgust as he finally understood the severity of the situation.

There was no wayward CIA agent, no annoyingly violent Russian, and more to the point, no recently deceased body. At least, not in the traditional sense. There was only Jiminy, crouched protectively over the lifeless and slightly bleeding form of a tiny, dead baby squirrel.

Zane sighed and quietly turned the air blue. If it wasn't CIA agents making life difficult for him, it was husbands and their asshole cats. He was trying his best to love the furry little jerks, if only for the sake of his marriage, but there were times when the animals strained his patience to the limits. He appreciated Jiminy's efforts to eliminate a potential problem, but he didn't want or need to see the results up close and in the flesh. And why did it have to be a squirrel? As if the dead mice weren't bad enough...

He thumped his (still empty) mug down on the kitchen table, and took a small, cautious step towards the victorious cat, intending to confiscate the messy toy. But Jiminy had other ideas. He looked Zane straight in the eye, let out a guttural growl, clamped his jaws delicately around his catch, and slowly started to back away.

Zane swore again and froze in his tracks, reluctant to make another move in case he provoked the feline into flight. If Jiminy made it out into the main part of the store, God only knew where or how he would dispose of his grisly prize. An image popped into his head, of a customer browsing through the shelves of books suddenly coming face to face with the bloody remains of a half-eaten baby squirrel. Their regulars knew all about the gadgets and toys Ty had secretly seeded through the store, but that was taking things a bit too far.

"How about I grab the cat, and you grab the squirrel?" Zane suggested to his spouse.

Ty grunted quietly in disgust. "Garrett, are you seriously asking me to handle a dead squirrel?"

"Well I'm not fucking touching it," Zane retorted. "And it was your cat that killed the damn thing, so yeah."

Ty wasn't at all impressed. "Why are they always _my_ cats when they do something bad, but _our_ cats when they do something good?" he complained.

Zane said nothing, but simply fixed his husband with a malevolent glare until the former marine threw up his hands in defeat.

"Okay, _fine_ ," Ty huffily acknowledged. "We talked about this when we brought them home. Jiminy just made a mess, so right now, he's only _my_ cat."

Zane nodded, glad to have the matter addressed. "Let's do this, then. The way I suggested."

"C'mon, man," Ty pleaded, turning on his own impressive attempt at the Bambi stare. "Can't we do it the other way round? You know how much I hate squirrels."

"Yeah, when they're _alive_ ," Zane protested. "This one's as dead as a fucking nail."

"Oh, like that makes it any better," Ty shot back.

"Ty?"

"What?"

"Why are you whispering?" Zane calmly asked.

"Because I don't want Jiminy to know what we're about to do," was Ty's perfectly logical response.

"He's a cat, Grady," Zane ground out through clenched teeth. "He chases lasers and licks his own ass. And sometimes Cricket's as well. He's not secretly planning to take over the world."

Ty huffed, mortally offended. "The vet told me he's extremely intelligent."

"Yeah, for a _cat_ ," Zane pointed out. "He's not gonna accidentally solve the Riemann Hypothesis while he's rolling around on the reading room rug."

"Well if you're so fucking smart, Lone Star, _you_ get the damn thing away from him."

Now it was Zane's turn to quietly huff. He silently recited the AA prayer, reminding himself to accept the things he couldn't change, and slowly inched towards the cat.

Jiminy still wasn't convinced. He flattened his ears and growled again, his lips curling menacingly around his teeth, making his feelings very clear. The dead squirrel was _his_ catch, and anyone who wanted to take it from him better be willing to bleed.

Zane inched forward again, ready for a painful fight, then out of the blue, Jiminy's strategy suddenly changed. He abandoned his defensive pose and bolted towards the open door, seeking the freedom of the store beyond. Zane's hand shot out and grabbed the escaping cat firmly by the scruff of the neck.

"Easy there, boy, easy," he murmured in a calming voice, doing his very best to contain the angry, squirming ball of fur. "Not gonna hurt you, little guy. Just need you to let go of the squirrel, okay?"

Jiminy's answer was a musical snarl and another attempt to wriggle free, all to no avail.

"Go on then," Zane said to Ty. "Get the damn thing out of his mouth, before he claws my goddamn face off."

Ty gave him a hateful stare, then slowly approached the wailing cat, and carefully prised the lifeless squirrel out from between Jiminy's teeth. And that was precisely how and when all three of them discovered the tiny creature wasn't dead.

In a moment worthy of an Oscar for Best Supporting Squirrel, it suddenly sprung back to life. Ty emitted a girlish, eardrum-splitting shriek, and threw Lazarus across the room as hard and as fast as he could. He stumbled back towards the door, trying to escape from the twitching intruder, but slipped on a tiny spot of blood (which had obviously been all for show), and slammed into the hardwood floor with an awkward, bone-jarring thud.

The miraculously resurrected squirrel fared much better than its human opponent. It landed deftly on the fridge, raced around the kitchen counter, then leaped off the end unit and out into the adjacent hall. Jiminy snorted in disgust, twisted out of Zane's grasp, and set off in hot pursuit, obviously intending to make good on his loss.

A few moments later, Zane heard a metallic clang, followed by the ominous sound of several hundred tiny objects skittering across a floor.

"There goes the bowl of smarties I put out on the front counter," he murmured, reaching up to rub his eyes with his thumb and his index finger. He could only imagine what kind of damage the cats would wreak by the end of the day, especially once Cricket got in on the act. When it came to hunting down and viciously destroying rodents, she was even more ferocious and focused than her older brother.

And he _still_ hadn't had his goddamn coffee.

He turned to look down at Ty, who lay sprawled on the kitchen floor.

"You okay there, doll?" he asked.

Ty let out a pained groan, and gingerly pushed himself up into a sitting position. "I think I broke my ass," he confessed.

Zane snickered. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"You're funny."

"I try."

"Not hard enough."

"That's not what you told me the other night."

Ty tutted and rolled his eyes, obviously not at all impressed by his husband's cheesy sense of humour. But whatever retort he'd been planning to make was interrupted by the sound of someone pounding on the door. Their CIA contact had now arrived, probably with a 'friend' in tow. Hopefully, a living (but not bleeding) friend. One corpse per day was more than enough, regardless of the size and species.

Zane leaned over to grab his mug. "I'm going to make my coffee now," he said to Ty, waving towards the machine. " _You_ can answer the goddamn door."

Ty huffed and opened his mouth, ready to object to another unfair division of work, then noticed the dark expression on his husband's face, and wisely decided to keep his opinions to himself.

By the time Zane had finally finished brewing and pouring his precious joe, there was another person in the room. Person, singular. Not people, plural. And that person was indeed the asshole Russian, just as he'd previously feared. Could this day _possibly_ get any worse?

"Weren't you supposed to be bringing someone with you?" he asked, getting straight to the point. He was in no mood for the usual introductory conversations.

"It is nice to see you too, Agent Zane. I am very well, thank you for asking," Orlov replied. "And yes, I was supposed to be bringing someone with me."

Zane ignored the Russian's complaints. "So what the hell happened?"

Orlov heaved a frustrated sigh, slipped out of his leather coat and stalked across to the cupboards where they kept their mugs, obviously intending to help himself to some of the recent brew.

"I lost him," was his curt and resentful reply.

"What the hell do you mean, you _lost_ him?" Ty repeated, his voice full of disbelief. "Did you shoot him? Did he fall into the sea? Did you leave him on the bus? Did he kick you in your puny Russian balls and run away?"

Orlov blew out another sigh and shot Ty a murderous glare. "He ran away," was all he said.

Ty flapped his arms in disgust. "And why the fuck didn't you run after him? Jesus, Orlov, what kind of CIA agent are you?"

"The kind of CIA agent who usually works behind a desk because he has two steel pins in one of his legs," the Russian reminded them as he made his way to the pot of coffee, limping very slightly.

Zane snorted and leaned against the kitchen counter. "Which means you probably run like a little old lady."

"If you wish to be an asshole about it, Agent Zane, then yes, I run like a little old lady," Orlov admitted, blushing very slightly.

"So if you don't have the mark with you, why the hell are you even here?" Ty asked grouchily. "Why didn't you do us all a huge favour, and crawl straight back into your dog cage at Langley where you belong?"

Orlov shrugged nonchalantly. "Because I was cold and tired, and I remembered that you make very good coffee," he explained as he filled his mug to a centimetre below the brim.

"Lemme get this straight," Zane said. "You made us get out of bed at ass o'clock on a Sunday morning, on one of the coldest goddamn days of the year, because you wanted a _cup of coffee_?"

"Yes," Kirill replied, as if this was an entirely reasonable explanation. He swallowed a mouthful of his coffee, sighed, smiled and visibly relaxed.

Ty was not at all impressed. "Next time he turns up, _you_ can answer the damn door," he muttered to Zane. "Because I'm not letting the miserable, useless fucker in."

"Absolutely," Zane agreed. "I don't care who he works for, who his twin brother is or how politely he knocks. He can stand in the alley and freeze to death."

"Agent Zane, please," Orlov said, pausing to take another gulp. "I am from _Moscow_. This weather may be cold for you, but it is almost tropical for me."

"Feel free to go stand outside in your board shorts whenever you want," Ty retorted.

Orlov gave the other man one of his belittling smiles. "Do not worry, Tyler. As soon as I have finished my cup of coffee, I will be on my way."

"Don't take too long," Zane warned. "We have a nice, warm, comfy bed waiting for us back at the house."

"God forbid I should ever get in the way of the filthy fucking," the Russian complained.

Ty reached out to snatch the half-empty mug from the visitor's hands. "Get your mind out of the gutter, asshole. This might come as a shock to you, but there's more to our relationship than just filthy fucking."

Zane's eyebrows shot up. That was news to him...

The Russian frowned, obviously struggling to grasp the concept of using a bed for something other than sex. Then he smiled, as if he'd remembered there was something else he wanted to do.

"If you do not object, I would like to give Jiminy and Cricket a scratch on the chin before I leave."

Zane struggled not to snort. What the hell was it with highly-trained assassins and cats? Ty, Julian and Kirill were all capable of killing a room full of people without so much as breaking a sweat, but give any of them a goddamn kitten, and to a man, they immediately turned to goo.

It was fucking pathetic. Funny as hell, but still pathetic. At least Orlov's older brother had the decency to prefer dogs.

"Yeah, no, that's gonna be a problem," Ty advised, shaking his head.

"Mother of God, Grady, please tell me nothing bad has happened to the beautiful kitties?" Orlov exclaimed, brimming with righteous indignation.

Ty huffed and rolled his eyes. "Relax, Ivan. The fur babies are fine. They're both kinda busy right now, so you'll be chopped liver to them."

Right on cue, as if their furry ears were burning, there was a sliding thud from the front of the store as a newly unpacked pile of books toppled gracelessly to the floor.

Orlov cocked a questioning brow.

"They're chasing a squirrel," Zane explained.

"A sneaky, devious, two-faced squirrel with absolutely no fucking manners whatsoever," Ty added. "Can't think _who_ that reminds me of."

"The CIA should have given this job to William instead of me," the Russian observed, completely ignoring Ty's remark. "He is very good at catching squirrels."

"And he probably doesn't run like a little old lady," Zane murmured into his mug, earning him a hateful glare.

With a flash of his hand and a noise of disapproval from Ty, Orlov reclaimed his sequestered cup. He gave it a swirl to stir up the grounds, drained it in a single gulp and placed it carefully down in the sink. Then he retrieved his leather coat from where he'd abandoned it over a chair, pulled out a hat and a pair of gloves and limped purposefully towards the door.

"I think it is time for me to leave," he told his unwilling hosts. "But I am quite sure we will see each other again soon."

"Don't rush back on our account," was Ty's slightly truculent response.

Orlov simply smiled. "You should go back to bed now, Tyler," he calmly advised. "You are very grumpy today, and you look tired."

And with that he was gone, back out into the bitter morning cold.

Zane finished his own cup. "He's right, you know," he said to Ty. "You _are_ very grumpy today, and you _do_ look tired."

"Well, what the hell do you expect?" Ty protested. "Some asshole just made me get out of bed at six o'clock on a Sunday morning."

"You wanna take the asshole's advice? Go back to bed for a couple of hours? We were supposed to have the day off, so Catherine's covering the store."

"What about the squirrel problem?" Ty asked, gesturing towards the hall. "Catherine's not supposed to come in until noon. We could have feline-induced armageddon on our hands by then."

"I'll send her a text, let her know what's going on. She can handle the cats. And several kinds of armageddon. It's why we hired her."

Ty smirked. It was indeed.

"And what about you, hoss? You just drank close to half a pint of extra-strong Jamaican coffee. You're not gonna need to sleep again until the end of the month."

"I'll figure something out," Zane replied, lifting his shoulders in a shrug.

"Besides," he added, a shit-eating grin spreading across his handsome face, "who said anything about going back to sleep?"


End file.
